A rail anchor clamps onto a railway rail and is positioned to abut a vertical face of a tie whereby there is resistance to longitudinal movement of a rail relative to the supporting tie.
For many years, there have been machines for setting, applying, and removing rail anchors. These procedures involve both placing anchors in close abutting relation with opposite vertical faces of a tie when installing the anchors and/or tie, as well as shifting the anchors lengthwise of the tie so that a tie remover can longitudinally withdraw the tie from beneath the rail to replace a tie. Equipment for spreading anchors is shown in Quella U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,558. Adjusting anchors into tie-abutting positions can be accomplished with a device such as that shown in Miller U.S. Pat. No. 3,117,531. Equipment for positioning and applying anchors is generally shown, with significant limitations, in McIlrath U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,272,148 and 3,438,707.
McIlrath discloses an apparatus for securing anchors onto rails, but requires that the anchors be manually positioned adjacent the rail for subsequent adjustment and engagement with the rail. With this type of arrangement, either an additional laborer is required to run ahead of the apparatus to pre-position the anchors, or an individual operator must continuously mount and dismount the apparatus to position the anchors himself. In the typical situation where several miles of track are being maintained, such alternatives pose overwhelming inefficiencies in completing repairs.
Additionally, when clamping an anchor onto a rail, a lateral force is developed which is reacted by the applicator apparatus, tending to force the apparatus laterally off of the rails. McIlrath proposes one solution to this problem as a fixed arm which engages the rail prior to securing the anchor. This approach requires that at every tie the stabilizing arm be actuated and retracted to effectively maintain the position of the apparatus on the rails. This increases the complexity of operation of the apparatus as well as increasing the energy consumption and operating expenses of the apparatus.
An automatic anchor applicator to automatically deliver a pair of anchors to a rail, align the anchors in abutting relation with opposite faces of the tie, and place the anchors into positive engagement with the rail would contribute to further mechanization of the operations required in railway track installation and maintenance programs.